One Step, Two Step, Next step- Canoe Step?

This year we embarked on the task of trying to complete one of our big landscaping feats on the hillside... the stairs down to the pond. Our conservation requirements gave us three years from the time of the original permit -November 2010 - to complete our original mitigation and close it all out.  Early this year, with time flying by and first hand knowledge of the speed of procedures in our town, we realized that we needed to get going on it if we were going to do anything at all.

The first step was drawing up a plan, which Anthony did on top of our original site plan. He ran this by the conservation agent in February and then gave it to the site engineer, who submitted it to the conservation commission in May as an amendment to our original plan. Spring planting season looked like it was turning into summer planting season. 

Wouldn't you know, our meeting date fell in the middle of a week in June when Anthony was bouncing back and forth between conferences in Maine and Rhode Island, and me alone with my big pregnant belly and toddler on a school night was not going to be able to make it. Not that we needed to, after all, we were paying our engineer to do it. At 7:00 that night I sat back grading papers on the couch watching the conservation commission on tv. After some rather contentious cases interspersed with the cons com members checking in on the Bruins game, our case finally came up at 9:41. It was peacefully agreed to by 9:46. While I'm obviously pleased by the lack of drama, I wish it could have happened before my bedtime.

With builder John standing by, we awaited the official word from the committee. And waited. And waited. And waited.  Anthony finally checked in on the progress (or lack there of), only to find that apparently it had been stuck on the admins. desk for a while. Really though, we know what speeds things up for us construction-wise... it's having a baby, right?

Our second child was born (!) and with Anthony's nagging gentle reminders to conservation, we got the word we could build our stairs. Juggling our new life, here's where we're happy we hired someone to build them instead of attempting to do this ourselves. 

It took us a while to get everyone home from Boston, and now our summer planting season has turned into a fall planting season, or more likely, moved back to a spring planting season due to a new state-wide ruling - which we still don't really understand - that we could have an additional three years to complete any work from the original cons com permit.  

Stairs to pond: check. The neighborhood cat already likes to lie out on the upper landing. 

Next up: figuring out the planting (can we just finish this already?), and getting a canoe to hold our family of four. I'd include Zippy, but let's be honest. He would have more fun barking at us from the shore.

-J&A

Love Potion #9

I'm revamping our magic number. Apparently we only need the 9 part to fall in love. Married on a 29 and our first daughter was born on a 29. But in true preexisting, nonconforming fashion, our second daughter was in such a hurry she just went with the 9th. Two months old now and we're all quite smitten with her.

N & C: Sisters

- J

Rerun

That's right, if you're opposed to watching reruns, then perhaps this post isn't for you, because yes- we've been here before.

At the risk of being redundant, we are in the midst of car-buying decision-making woes yet again. We have the Rav4 that came with N's birth, but the pink bike (aka 2nd vehicle) is getting a little tired of being stuck inside this blizzardy winter, and our wallet is taking a hit because when Anthony drives me to school and then on to take Natalie to day care he has to go past Starbucks to the tune of "Tasty treat! Tasty treat!" in the backseat- and who is he to deny the little scone lover? (Especially when there's an Earl Grey tea in it for him as his "reward" for driving.) Then there's the issue of whoever has the car is the sole driver for the day- it might make more sense for us to split the tasks.  So after about 7 years of one carness and a growing desire to be a bit more lazy, we've decided it's time.

So we're back to the ole "which car is right for us?" waffling. We originally got the Rav4 a few years back because we thought it was a nice mix of a small car + big car (3rd row sqiiiisssh when needed). So now that we have the perfect middle car do we go smaller, or bigger?

Shack to Home, Blog to Book

As if the blog itself weren't enough documentation, it has now become a book of its very own-hold-in-your-hand-proof that we lived through it and are still a happy little family. (The warm toesies are icing on the cake reminders of the happiness.)

Yes, the whole house-building thing was certainly a big project, and yes, putting together the book  brought back some anxious feelings, but it's nice that it's all so tidy in 110 pages. Just like it's nice that we actually do fit comfortably in a 20 foot wide house.

The book was done through blurb and is straight from the blog, including it all from our initial post on March 14, 2010 to the post on January 8, 2012.

The first page:



Easy-peasy-slurp-it-into-blurberezy, right? Well, the lay-out did take some time, as well as going back to find all the original pictures in their full resolution gloriness so they would be fit for hard copy. And then of course, there were a few gratuitous pictures thrown in there to tell the story a bit more- like my cliffsnotes version of the outside and inside for the final pages:

With this post, I realize it might be some crazy time-warpy thing to blog about the book that's about our blog, but consider us archived.
- J